Test How Good you Walk

Now on wards make it a note to observe your standing or sitting or relaxing positions. Whenever you feel stress in any particular muscle part of your body, change the placement of your legs or shoulders. This automatically reduces the stress and makes the seat comfortable. Our way of walking also carries our body language.

These mistakes occur even when we are walking. Some have this habit of swinging their hands and arms part in the air long. This causes trouble for others who walk beside them. 

Some walk with head bent down. This causes stress on neck also. And this shows lack of confidence and timid nature. So always walk with your head held high. 

How to correct the faults in walking 

* Draw a line on the floor with a chalk

* Take a hard bound book and place it on your head.

* Stand on the line 

* Keep your chin parallel to the ground.

 * Hang the hands loosely on your sides.

* Take a deep breath. 

* Looking straight with a broadened shoulder, start walking on the line carefully.

* Take care that the book remains on your head as long as you are walking. 

* Once you achieve perfection in this, try with wet foot.

-- noenglish

Back to Body Language

Our silent vocabulary has its sign boards. These are the combination of postures and gestures. When we talk, our hands move according to the mood, tone and expressions of the face. Our body also takes position to accompany them. So this silent language of the body accompanies us while talking as well. 

In general a posture means the position in which we hold our body upright while standing or lying down. The word posture is derived from the Latin ponere - means to put or place. 

Posture includes training our body to stand, walk, sit and lie in positions. It opts for the least strained positions. Muscles and ligaments are a part of these postures. If we are afraid or tense the muscles take stressful positions. They stretch relaxed way when we are happy or without tension. When we know this, it becomes easy for us to train ourselves to have stress free body language. 

Remember some of the positions where you intentionally stress a particular part of your body. 

Sitting tight at the edge of a chair

Digging the floor with your big toe of the foot

Feeling helpless and leaning over a chair or a table.

There are many such positions where we strain our body to transfer the mind's stress. This body posture reading makes the other person read your mind and measure your stress or tension.  

-- noenglish

Writing is easy

We write to record a happening
We write to prove a point.
We write to argue with those unseen readers who oppose our point of view.
We write just to share the information in a systematic way so that the readers could remember in order to use the information in later stages.
All this involves writing for a purpose of the day to day happenings. We call them an article of argument or reflection. They consist of in depth information as they present for a thesis. Or a presentation. It takes the help of visual aids such as ppts or short informative videos. These writing forms include the various. This is writing for general purpose.People who like to make writing their profession become journalists, editors or content editors.

 Some would have the passion for writing but are indulged in other professions or established activities. Here writing is a vent out for the internal intensities. Writing them in words relieves them of the emotional or professional burdens. This equals a mind work out. These are amateurs. They write to express themselves. Literary works are the best examples for this. Writing a diary was considered as an art in the olden days. Now that lead to online writing in the likes of maintaining Facebook Pages or Blogging. But they could not be as secretive as a dairy.

One can limit the access and decide who could read them. But the data remains the same. This further lead to a regular readership on internet. Amitabh Bachan's blog is the best example for this.

Writing is Easy...
Reading a book is a hobby for some. While reading, the lines flow and the eye moves on them. The content forms a picture in our mind to correlate itself with our emotions too. Literary fiction works often have this impact. For general articles we need not impress the reader much. But the literary piece needs to be wrote, groomed and perfected. A continuous cropping of redundancies and addition of verbal cosmetics (finding decorative vocabulary) is a necessity. THis demands a better levels of reading and writing.

Once you attain sufficient levels of vocabulary and a grip on imaginary levels certainly makes a person feel "WRITING IS EASY"

-- noenglish

Dialogue with Diary

I'm not able to agree with the serene cover page for the book.

Whenever I look at it, I could hear my heart's refusal to settle with the exterior serenity. "How could a creation happen with a cool and balanced mind. We chiselled ourselves and each piece is the word that you have written and feel proud of. But my dear! writing is not that simple act. It's a tsunami that carries us to the shores where the destruction of something results in the creation of a new world. It destroys the writers peace of mind, serenity of the heart, or takes him on flight or bleeding foot to the places unknown.

Yes...

Writing is never a simple act.

It appears simple. It's vocabulary sounds simple. The lay out on the page looks calm. The alphabet carry the laughter or the melancholy of the heart. They even stun us with a different mind frame. But the birth place of the alphabet is the war field in the mind's vision. There the writer sees something that touched his heart or disturbed him to the eternity. This results in the blank ink spreading on the page or the laptop screen.

The lines that spread over the pages release the writer from the heart's heaviness or the mind's madness or souls soliloquy or the momentous silenc.
I welcome you all to my world that carries the moments of turbulence, pain, agony, ecstasy, a blind war within.
Every page of the book is the heart and mind's dialogue with each other. One overpowering the other. When do they come to terms with each other, then is born the Diary of their Dialogues.
Dear all welcome to "Dialogue with Diary"

My baby is getting ready to be born to be in your hands.
Just a few days wait.
The count down has begun. 

-- noenglish

Body Language - fact or fiction

Let us take look upon the other part of our body language. Body language, in general, shows the natural responses. They originate in the mind and spread to the various body parts according to the connectivity. When we are happy our lips relax a bit, eyes carry the smile as well, and the neck stays straight. 

When we feel the sadness, the eyes carry the seriousness of the thoughts, lips tighten, the chin stays slant. Extending further hands too come into the scene and cup the cheek in the hand as though supporting the neck as it could not offer any support. Observe the occasions carefully, when you had come across such postures in the recent past.

Previously we discussed about the details of facial expressions. Eye contact is the most effective tool of the face talk. Individuals may train themselves to hide their intentions and look good on face. They successfully control their facial expressions. Their eyes look bright and confident. They might be dying of fear inside. How to transfer the fear and where?

Observe carefully. And remember there are other parts of the body that are moveable. The hands and the legs. The inner fear is transferred to either the hand movements or fixing the legs. The hands positions are called Gestures. Postures are the placement of legs that reflect the shades of thinking of a person. 

Observe the above pic carefully and every day count the occurrences when you come across these postures and gestures. The interest towards humans and keen observation of their body movements is hte only way to learn the rights and wrongs of body language. 

The psychology of a person is reflected through these cues of the body. We could control our hasty gestures and postures and even the facial expressions with a few self taught sessions. Learn slow and apply with patience. We are sure to understand ourselves and others too with a good base of information. 

Some more facts about postures and gestures in tomorrow's post. Stay tuned dears!

-- noenglish

Today noenglish reached its 2000 views

 Thanks to all dears for making this blog complete its 2000 views. As I look back from the day I started this blog on June 1, 2018, learned the art of writing anew each day. It expanded my view about me inwardly and at the world too. My hearty thanks to all!

 

 

 IT was just that thought of relieving myself of the thoughts that disturb me  suggested to start writing as a diary. But on a second thought I told myself why not a blog. It would record my thoughts, ideas and experiences. Teaching is my identity. Every thought starts with it and surrounds it.

It has taught me many things. Made me a learner before I think about commanding my lads.

To have patience before I lose it.

To empathise before I punish them

To make a mind plan before I take up the activity.

I grow with each batch of students - learning and unlearning it. 

 

It was way back on 1st October, 2001, started my innings.

The first ever demo of the class I taught was Sarojini Naidu's poem.

Young, innocent, clever, naughty, curious  students staring at me. Some are ready to give me a cue or two back to take for. I sensed the intention from their faces. Automatically a smile came on my lips. I'm, suddenly, at ease. I told myself, yes they are listening. They liked it, yet they want to show a bit of themselves. Relax. Now its the time to prove. 

I gave a long stare towards them and said "As students you had been through ten years of English. Now without a second thought tell me which part of speech is - IS"

Their eyes gave a look as though commenting - is this a question worthy to test our acumen...

My lips smiled again. I said,"I'm new to the profession. Take your liberty. Give the answer without a second thought. You have every right to make a mistake."

I continued with the girls, one by one, the answers poured in.

preposition

adverb

pronoun

adjective

"This is the time to tighten the grip. And prove my point." 

I found the way to show I'm THE teacher. 

 

Took each one to task. Had an elated arguments why it is a preposition

It comes before a noun ma'am. 

Give me an example,

He is a doctor. See it came before the noun.

Wow...good... I said. 

Why it is an adverb.

How can it be a pronoun or an adjective. For these too their point of view followed. I learned how differently we can view things.

:) :) :)  

Then I asked them one more question

What is the past tense form of IS

All at once the answer uttered - WAS

Now tell me which part of sentence is -IS

NO need for the answer... They identified their mistake.   :)  :) 

 

All the class gave broad grin. 

Once they smiled means I'm in as a faculty. 

Its my first practical lesson of body language. 

Sleep like a fish

In our body face is the most prominent one. It has many parts that actively take part in communication.
The forehead frowns.
The eyes sparkle.
The lips smile
And even we tilt our head towards whom we like, wish to make friendship or even enjoy the gossips.

All these movements of parts of our head made it a prominent part to speak without language.
Eyes are the best part that contributed words such as look, stare, glance, peep etc.
Each one has a different impact and different level of activity to reflect our mind.
Look is a casual activity
Stare is a fixed look towards an object of attention
Glance is a quick look
And peep is the secretive observation done through a creak of a window or a hole
We have this naughty activty - wink
Eyes have their nature as well.
We have twinkling eyes, watery eyes, sleepy eyes, hooded eyes, protruding eyes, upturned eyes, down turned eyes, close set eyes and wide set eyes.

Blue eyed persons are considered to be more glamorous. Some have them naturally and some go for a lense artificially. Green eyed monster - the emotion called jealousy is prevalent in both men and women. When they turn yellowish,  undoubtedly they are affected by jaundice.

Eyes are the most sensitive parts of our body. We stare continuously at our mobiles or desktops. They develop troubles such as dry eyes or red eyes. These are to be treated with proper medical care. 

Eyes also give away hints of stress, happiness or unhappiness. We may smile with lips, but it is the eyes that tell the truth whether you are really happy or not.
Lastly, one fact that is stranger than a fiction. Fish stays in water. And it is the only creature that sleeps with an open eye. Why because it has no free moving eye lids or eye lashes.  How logical is nature!

-- noenglish,

A Language without Alphabet

We all carry a language unspoken, unknown, yet very familiar and inescapable.
It has no alphabet
It has no syllabus
It has no text books
Yet it's teachers are more sought after.
It's application has no boundaries.

Put a finger across your lips... shhh... it's a sign for silence

Put a hand on the bike's handle and your foot on the pedal, your body is speaking that it's ready to move

A simple wave in  the air could give two options either come here or dont come 
Yes, it's the language spoken by our body.
We commonly call it Body Language.
Its very important to move our body parts in a controlled manner to reflect the efficient use of body language.
It's alphabet is divided into three groups
One is Facial expressions
Second is Gestures and
Third is the Postures.

Each division has many alphabet that help us in speaking the most civilised way. and impress the authorities or elders. Secondly, it's absence also expresses how closer the other person is and how familiar we are to each other. We have to know when to apply it or not to. That just belongs to the common sense part of a human.
Let's learn the words that describe each movement of our body parts that depict in perfection.

Write as you speak

U plz km asap.
how r u
am 5n
i noe dat
 giv it der.
A decade ago no one would have expected the language to change its spelling structures.The technical leaps opened many easy ways of communication. It made  faster texting a compulsion. Letter writing has become an extinct art. Nobody thinks of sending post letters. It is just the texting of messages and the mails. This is not going to kill us but it is killing the sensibilities and ultimately the beauty of emotional communication.  It's not the world but the words, that are dying.

Then what about the language...
We need not worry about it. Language is an evolutionary process. The making of words include additions, removals and acceptance. First two belong to the grammarians. The third one, acceptance, belongs us - the users. These users include speakers, listeners and writers. We started to speak, listen and write words of easy applicability.

For example - Laugh out Loud has become lol. It is accepted and added as a new entry to the vocabulary by the Oxford English Dictionary makers.
ROLF - this needs no explanation
ASAP(as soon as possible) - is spoken as a word
TTYL - talk to you later
BFN - bye for now

Chat changed us very much.
The burden of multi chat or the speed requirement or the freedom of no rule mood/mode of privacy made people opt for an easy scribbling of messages in the in boxes of chat rooms.
The word you is shortened to U. May be in the near future, new spelling patterns may happily adopt to this kind of spelling patterns such as - Write as you speak and speak as you write.

How many likes you got

From mother tongue, we move to the art of making words. Languages have different methods of making words. Before we proceed further let's refer to those methods opted in making words.

Like Unlike
These two words remind me of my confusion of their frequent usage as icons on Facebook. When I opened my FB account way back in 2008, this like vs unlike used to poke my mind. How can the word Like be used as an antonym for Unlike. Actually its Like Vs don't like and Hate stands as an antonym for Love.

Some more food for thought!

Sometimes social network sites promote particular words with a meaning altogether not applicable to it at all. Here we have these two words LIKE and UNLIKE. The vocabulary on Facebook, we see these two words placed side by side.
Like - is taken for the equivalent of liking the pic or the status or the video.
Unlike - this word is considered that the reader did not like the post or the status or the pic or the video.
Coming to the observation of the meaning of these two words gives us how wrongly we use words with wrong applications.
According to the grammar rules Like is a verb. 
eg: I like the film.
Liked is the past tense form.
But Facebook changed the grammatical verb into a noun. And we often hear this "Look! my pic has one hundred likes.
Or
My posts never get likes at all. I don't know why.
Or
How many likes you got?
Unknowingly we are influenced by the applicability of the word and started to use it as a known very comfortably.

Let's get back to the word's meaning once again.
It is used to mean to enjoy or approve of someone or something.
Usually we say
I like to hum melodies while driving.
You like her, don't you?
 Now see the drastic change in the usage of the word.

Now let's look at 'Unlike'
This word's meaning is "different from" and comes under the category of Preposition.
Monica is a shy girl - unlike her younger sister!
The Tech fest went well, unlike the previous year when very few people came

Another meaning is 'similarity' in ways of behaviour or appearance.
eg: My sister looks like me.
Your brother is not like you. {similarity in appearance/ways of behaviou)
Unlike - Different from, not similar

Such is the power of the social networks. The social acceptance makes right to be used in a perfect  way that is very much wrong. It's not a matter of right or wrong. Do you used it or Don't.

Tongue Plus

MOTHER TONGUE give a person the identity to communicate. It also gives us the necessary vocabulary base to build the words into sentences. In India our mother tongue languages vary from each others. In South Indian region Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam comprise the bunch of spoken medium. Government schools offer education in the regional languages. North India has wider range of regional languages such as Bihari, Punjabi, Kashmiri, Gujarati, Bengali, Marathi etc. These regions too have government run educational institutes in the regional languages as the teaching medium and various subjects have books written in those languages.

NCERT- National Council of Educational Research and Training is the government body that concentrates on developing study material for children of CBSE. It prefers to publish books in Hindi and English languages. In general, the books are such storehouses of information that even the candidates appearing for CIVIL exams prefer to refer them often.

Now let's move on with the mother's treasure words!

PLUS POINTS OF MOTHER TONGUE
READING information in mother tongue makes to read as well as remember for longer periods. The neuro imprints of the language could easily absorb the information and prepare a memory path for the brain to store it safe
PEOPLE who have strong base of mother tongue and it's grammatical structure could understand and learn any other language easily. It assures them to correlate words of English easy with the stock of their native language. This also assures easy creation of memory path for the brain.
UNDERSTANDING GRAMMAR rules is necessary for the fluency of any language. If you have good hold on your native language grammar patterns and rules, then need not worry about learning the grammar aspects of English. Hard work on word structure ensures you fluency dividends as early as possible.

MOTHER TONGUE IS A PLUS FOR US. GO AHEAD AND LEARN YOUR MOTHER TONGUE TO PLAY WITH THE FOREIGN TONGUE OF THE LAND.

Mother Tongue Influence

OUR language is learned through mind imprints and imagery. These are the two factors that influence our flawless speaking abilities. We speak as we think. Thinking and speaking happen simultaneously without any other hindrance in the brain. Mind finds it easy to find the suitable word for the emotions. The words flow rapidly. The listener is awestruck at the shower of words and accepts your point of view in the argument. This happens when we are speaking in the language that is our mother tongue. The innate vocabulary gathered years over is ever ready to meet our argument levels in speaking

AS we are not the natives of English language, many problems occur in pronouncing the words or finding suitable words to match the emotion or the need of the argument. There the brain has to seek the help of mind to find the suitable word in mother tongue, and then translate it into the language recently learned. We do not have enough word bank to find the equivalent word in English. That results in hushed voices, confused facial expressions, fearful looks to end the situation and move away to a safer place to happily speak our mother tongue. 

SECOND impact is the ways of pronunciations in Indian English

The intonation impact
The pronunciation impact
Lastly, syntax impact - placement of subject, verb and object

Lastly, a new word for the day... KINGLISH

Kinglish is a language used by the kings to speak with other kings. THis language is originated in Central Louisiana. It is a royal dialect. So far I had never come across such a dialect. Hope to know it some day.

Why not a father tongue

Words are formed in tune with the happenings of life in general. One such word is mother tongue. A tongue is the softest muscle part with free movement in the mouth cavity. It could move up and down, in and out. Tongue is the first visible tool for our speaking ability. Later we have other parts of the mouth such as lips, teeth, vocal chords, throat, nasal cavity etc. So it is accepted that tongue cannot be taken easy and we have to accept the tongue in this word "mother tongue"

Now we come to the first word MOTHER
Why it's always mother tongue
why not a father tongue

Give it a thought...

Here is my thought flow.

A mother's voice is the first sound recorded in the mind of an infant. As years go by, the baby begins to imitate the movements of the lips of the people around it. Children find it easy to correlate with the words of the language that they heard when they are in the womb of the mother. Mother's voice is recorded in it's brain since its formation in the womb. Hence the baby's tongue could easily imitate the sounds. This is the most beautiful part of childhood for the parents. They make fun of these peculiar sounds later to the grown up boy or girl. Even as an infant, a baby stops crying the moment it hears the mother's voice, not father's. Such is the psychological proximity for the infant.

These sounds when uttered with clarity become the first database for our future linguistic abilities. Her language becomes ours. Whatever language we inherited from the mother becomes our mother tongue. Do we need anymore proof to accept this word formation -- mother tongue!

Analysing words to understand their origin also helps us to have a firm base for our vocabulary.

Now Make your guess...  :)

Caricature

Nowadays, even well-made films are not spared from criticism. These satirical creations are also in a film (of shortest duration) form but have the funniest content to create the laughter of the highest possible leve. They are called spoofs. Spoof is the very well known word to mean imitation. We have many spoofs made on many films - such as Bahubali, Arjun Reddy, Dangal, PK etc. Any person who has creativity to think different could go ahead and make a spoof on anything under the sky.

All these words - mimicry, parody, spoof - represent spoken or performing abilities of an individual/s. We have one art form - Caricature-  that imitates physical features of the people around us on paper. This word is taken from French language The prominent features of a person are presented in a sketch form to give us. These caricatures create comic effect. These represent the observation levels of the artist in understanding the nature of the sketched person.

The features of its subject are showed in a simplified or exaggerated way. The artist sketches with pencil strokes or through artistic ways of drawings.

Mimicry to Parody

Imitation is one word that explains the act of copying someone's actions.
We have a bunch of words that reflect the various forms of copying. We don't have any copyright act here to restrict us. The more actions copied the better applause one gets under different labels. First let us start with the word Mimicry.


Mimicry has origins in Greek language that stands for mime. Mime means a performer who silently imitates gestures and expressions of others. But mimicry includes sounds too. Imitating the voice of peculiar politicians, actors, animals or any sounds around us in order to entertain. It could be either humorous or satirical or both.

If imitation is done at personal level, to attain satirical satisfaction then we call it mockery.
Next level of Mimicry is Parody.

A parody is a work created to imitate, make fun of an original work. Humor is created by the satirical or ironic imitation of the original work.The subject, author, style or any other aspect of the work could be aimed at to create entertainment for the viewer or the reader.

Lord of Laughter

Imitation is the best form of flattery.

He imitated the best sounds of life.

He introduced common man's life on stage.

He made the common man elate high in laughter.

He was admired by the dignitaries of the world around

He is the REAL SON OF the Telangana!

He is my ever soothing MIMICRY Artist Nerella Venu Madhav!

We are a generation that grew up listening to him in All India Radio and TV shows. Admired his ability to replicate various voices around us. He is the first of his generation to adopt MIMICRY as the passion and profession. Later a devotee of the art of the golden throat. He developed his throats ability from mimicry to be called "impressionist" and "ventriloquist". He became inspirational to many in Telugu speaking people to opt mimicry as a hobby or a passion or a profession.

 

 

 Such is his infectious zeal towards sounds and his love for life. Born in Warangal, his passion has taken him to distant lands. His voice is sensitive enough to replicate Lata Mangeshkar's voice and sang to her. 

 

Most Liked parts of his Mimicry: 

Presenting a scene from the Hollywood movie "Mckenna's Gold" as a part of his mimicry programs

Imitation of Prithviraj kapoor in the film Mughal E Azam. As children we enthralled listening to such awesome originality.

His popularity took him to the United Nations Organisation, New York, to perform and remember, he was the first mimic to receive such honourable invitation. The list goes endless.

 

Happy that you happened on Earth

Happier to scroll down to your humor

Let your show go on in Heaven too

Adieu my magician of golden throat

We all continue to find our solace in your laughter empire

Tongue the Twister

Tongue is the main mourth part that helps in pronunciation. Speaking needs ingredients such as clarity and fluency. Our tongue needs practice to get acquainted to the new language, English. It has to familiarize itself for the words. The more we speak them the better results occur in speaking. We need continuous practice and it should be fun to do it. Every language has an interesting tool for this.
Tongue Twisters! Yes, once they were our best friends in teasing others - a harmless fun. Let's visit them now.

Tongue twisters are a great fun way to practice vocabulary. They help in clearing the mistakes in pronunciation and improve fluency. Repitition of one sound is known as alliteration. Tongue twisters have plenty of alliteration and help to improve accent as well
They have similar  but distinct phonemes (sounds)
e.g., s [s] and sh [ʃ]

She sells sea-shells on the sea-shore.
The shells she sells are sea-shells, I'm sure.
For if she sells sea-shells on the sea-shore
Then I'm sure she sells sea-shore shells.

Sometimes they combine two different alternation patterns

Shep Schwab shopped at Scott's Schnapps shop;
One shot of Scott's Schnapps stopped Schwab's watch.
This twister won the grand prize in a contest in Games Magazine in 1979

This last one is a very commonly known one to all and had been playfully used in kindergarten years.
Betty Botter bought some butter
But she said the butter’s bitter
If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter
But a bit of better butter will make my batter better
So ‘twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter

Some more French

These french words need special ways of pronunciation.  It is better to refer to a dictionary before confidently include these in your vocabulary.

Crème de la crème - means cream of the cream - that could be taken as the best of the best

Décor     - This means the layout  including the furnishing of a room. It's a frequently used word.

Depot    Refers to a storehouse (such as a petrol depot, bus depot). T- the end consonant is silent.

Déjà vu     This means an impression or illusion of having seen or experienced something befor

Genre     A type or class, such as “the thriller genre”

Impasse     Stand-off

Objet d’art     refers to A  strange object of interest

Panache     Verve; flamboyance. 'che' - rhymes with 'sh' as in finish

Role     Participation of a person in a situation or just an actor in a play or a film

French Fries

We continue with the loans, this time a bit of French.

French is the language spoken by the people of France, a small country in the European continent.
At present it's the land that has the awesome Eiffel Tower and known for its passion for fashion. The beauty of french people is appreciated in fashion circles too.

The French in England:

From the 9th century until the 14th  century, French was the "official" language in the royal court and judicial courts of England! And you know, most documents were written in Latin. Yet the common people spoke an older form of English. What a liguistic chutney English is/was!  :)


French 'fries' in English

Yet, some words remained in the language, adding that pinch of french flavour to the vocabulary.
As we could imagine, there was large number of words that entered from French to English. Here are some English words that still "sound French."

One more caution: Listen to these words' pronunciation. Many are spoken differently
. Ballet
This is one form of dance that is very popular throughout the globe/ This is a dance form developed in France.
Ballerina is the related word. It means a female ballet dancer..

Make a note to remember the pronunciation of this word Ballet. The 't' sound is not pronounced, and the 'le' is rhymes with sound of the word "lay."

It’s important to note how the word “ballet” is pronounced. Here you don’t pronounce the “t” at the end. Instead, the second syllable should sound like “lay,” with the same vowel sound as the letter “a.”

There are some more words that correlate with this end sound
Cafe
Matinee
Souviner
Omlette
Restaurant
Salad
Picni
Toilette (now spelled as toilet)
Bon voyage
Boutique
All these words sound very familiar to you and me. So we too are as french as the English people.
Some more frenchies in the next post.

Let me tell you one last thing...

Despite its name, the French fry is not French. The origins of the French fries have been traced back to Belgium, where historians claim potatoes were being fried in the late-1600s. :)  :)

India and English

When we borrow money from any person, we feel poorer to do that. We promise to ourselves that we are not going to repeat it. Never again. And the feel haunts till we return the money. But English as a language loves to borrow words from other languages around the globe. It has become richer in vocabulary and continues to do so. Quite contrast isn't it!
Here is the calculation of the percentages of the languages that enriched English throughout the centuries. 

Latin    29%
French     29%
Germanic Languages
(Old/Middle English, Old Norse, Dutch)    26%
Greek    6%
Other languages/ uknown    6%
Derived from Proper Names    4%

Let's check into the details of borrowing:
We start with India.
A for AVATAR
Nowadays movies to help the natives accept the foreign words that are Hollywood block busters - James Cameron's Avatar - made the word enter straight into the vocabulary.
Some more words are - Yoga, Dhyana, Guru

Basmati - is the word taken from Hindi. It means something with a pleasant aroma/
In English, it is usually used along with 'rice'. It refers to the ingredient Basmati Rice.


Food wise: Curry, chutney, dal, sambar (the list is endless)
Place wise: Jungle, bunglow, gymkhana, bazaar
Animals: Cheetah, Sher
While searching about Indian words in English, I have come to know one interesting loaned word -SHAMPOO.
You know what, this word too is ours. We loaned it to the English. Actually it means massage in Hindi, with a bit or Turkish origin, was taken in and around 18th century.
The word 'Bangle' too entered the vocabulary around the same time period. Bangli - in Hindi means 'a glass bracelet'.

Region oriented products: Jodhpur chappals, Cashmere Shawls

Abba and Anna, Gulabjamun and Vada - these and many other words of Indian origin can now be found in Oxford English Dictionary. Its 2017 edition had already listed nine hundred words. These seventy are newly added. Wow... We can declare we have more than one thousand words of English vocabulary!

Hats off

Nature showed the utmost care by placing the brain secured in the skull. It blessed the brain with the greatest boon - thinking. 

Which chemical activates this process or Which catalyst triggers the emotions are not yet answered. The scientists are yet to develop a machine that equates with the brain's mind power. 
 Though we do not its perfect mechanism, we could use it to our best ability.

It is better for us to exercise our ability to think in better ways.  Understanding those phases helps us to understand our ways of thinking. Let's take the help of our mind master Edward De Bono. De Bono has written 57 books with translations into 34 languages. Thank the master mind and Wear the hats. So we start with the first one. 
One more special feature of his hats is that they are associated with colors. 

First one, White hat: Represents information. What are the facts? Which part of the information is false - this would be our first reaction to any heard information. Every minute we take in lot of information. So we wear it all the time

Second hat, Red hat: Red color represents emotions. We attach emotions to the fact that we gather from reading or listening. Emotional attachment dertermines next step of thinking

Third hat, Green hat: Green is generally associated with the emotion of jealousy. That is the denser emotion of heart. But here it is associated with investigation. Once we receive any info, we attach some emotion to it and start to investigate if it is acceptable or not.

Fourth hat, Balck hat: Black color is associated with judging nature. The gods of legal world wear long black gowns, the goddess of judgement wears a black band closing her eyes. In the darkness no color can be identified. Black is the stronger color. In the process too it applies to identify reasons to be cautious, practical and realistic.

Fifth one is, Yellow hat: It represents optimism. This level of thinking includes identifying benefits and seeing the brighter side of the situations

Sixth and the last one is Blue Hat: Blue belongs to the color of the skies. Philosophical in nature. After making a decision we shall have the look back attitude. What is the subject? What am I thinking about? What is the Goal? How far did I travel? Sometimes Blue hat gives us larger than the life frame.

The procedure of thinking is simplified through the concept of wearing hats. But many things race through our mind, that it engages in multi-tasking. Various issues would be wearing different colored hats in our mind. Just imagine our head popped up with multiple colored hats. Imagine is good for health.  :)  :)

Those Six Hats

To start with yesterday's vocabulary, let me put the info for you:

* Black list: A group of people marked for exclusion
* Black sheep: a member of a family or group who is considered as a dishonour
* A bolt from the blue: an unexpected event or arrival
* Feel blue: feel low or sad or gloomy
* To show one's true colors : exhibiting out the inner wickedness as the result of an incident
* with flying colors: excellent performance
* To be kept in the dark: to hide the person's or event's reality

those six hats...

Let's move over to a particular thinking process discussed by Edward De Bono, the father of Thinking out of the box concept. Interestingly, he named them six thinking hats. WE think about many issues at once. Hence we may wear those hats one by one or sometimes, two or three or four hats together. 

De Bono was an excellent thinker. He worked hard to understand the thinking process. One of his books has the title - THINKING ABOUT THINKING. Another book is titled "SIX THINKING HATS". This book speaks about the process that is involved in various phases of thinking. Hence we can not take thinking as a single process.

Colorful Words

Imagine how world looks/feels without colors.
Close the eyes and let the mind ponder over it.
ohhhhhhh
It's the dullest thing to imagine.
yes, colors are the best thing for the eyes. We love to keep our surroundings colorful with interior decoration at home. Now we could decorate the roof of the bed room with stars and moon to feel the sleep under the sky. Wow!

We dress in various color combinations to look gorgeous or pleasant or trendy or just cool.
Colors affect our moods and we choose the dress colors according to our moods. Both are complimentary to each other. Check this point when you were about to choose your shirt from the wardrobe.

Time to add color to our words.
Here we are supposed to attach each aspect to making words or phrases. Let's check how colors are attached to the words to sound it colorful while communicating the emotions.

1. Green eyed monster - this phrase describes "jealousy"
If you remember the decades back ONIDA TV advertisement - an adorable monster (in green color) peeps out and tells us - Owners Pride, Neighbour's Envy"
Envy is synonymous to jealousy.

2. Beat him black and blue - Beating a person to the highest level of force that causes the maximum damage to the skin on the body

3. Red
Red carpet welcome: welcoming the most important person
Red Tapism: Bureaucratic hiccups that hinder the administration to make decisions related to any important issues.
Red alert: a caution not to move in those surroundings
Paint the town red: This is an idiom and means to go out into a city or town and have a good time (usually by drinking alcohol and going dancing)

4. Yellow bellied means a coward

5. Pink slip: A notice of dismissal from job

6. White elephant: An expensive item that is costly to maintain

7. Golden opportunity (I think no need to explain. :)

8. Blue collar job - working in a manual labour job
Antonym for this is - A White collar job an executive one.

9. Silver has the most glamorous phrase -- SILVER SCREEN

10. Put something down in black and white.
(means to write)

11. William's face was black and blue after the wrestling match.
(means badly bruised)

Now find your vocabulary, Check either in the dictionary or google them :)

* Black list
* Black sheep
* A bolt from the blue
* Feel blue
* To show one's true colors 
* with flying colors
* To be kept in the dark

Think in Colors

WE think in words or phrases or in sentences. We think about issues that make us happy or sad or angry. But here is a different task to make new words or learn to use them. Think in colors.
Close your eyes.
Imagine colors
Or Imagine your favourite color.
Choose words to describe the color on mind. Don't open your eyes. Continue with your mind work. Let it see and talk. You may find it difficult to do. Just remember that you are giving an interesting task to explore your territory i.e mind.

One more important thing to remember is, think in english while you are making the list of words to describe your favourite color.

If you feel that you do not have sufficient vocabulary, make a list of words in your mother tongue. Remember them. After opening your eyes, look for those equivalent words online. There are two language dictionaries online such as - Telugu to English dictionary, Hindi to English dictionary, Marathi to English Dictionary etc.
We are supposed to add new words to our vocabulary. In our childhood we were very fast to add words to our speaking skills. Use them whenever the occasion arises, feel proud of it when the teacher/mother/brother/sister gives an appreciative look at us.
Now its our turn to create that zeal and nourish it daily. This mind game is one such to help us.

So imagine your favourite color and try to describe it in your words.

Answers for yesterday's post:

1. Hide - keep away from sight
2. Blame - have a bad effect on something
3. Invite - ask (a person to attend)

Touch the Skies

Let's do some muscle stretching of words

Welcome to the vocabulary test. You must choose the right word  each meaning. Write the number of that word next to its meaning. Here is an example.

1.	blame
2.	hide	________	keep away from sight
3.	hit	________	have a bad effect on something
4.	invite	________	ask

5. pour

6. spoil

Try it your way
Look at the words that are numbered from one to six.
Read the words that are given as their meaning.
Now try to match the two.
Wait for the Answers in the next post


Thinking happens at the most unexpected quarters. Yes, we could be walking, exercising, cooking, bathing or even gardening. A chain of thought happens unconscious of the connectivity to our surroundings. It could be about your friend's harsh words or scoldings of parents or siblings, the fight you had with your neighbor or just casual thinking of the good times you had so long since your childhood.

Anything under the sky is qualified to appease our thought process. The feel of the happening - good or bad or a plain balanced mode. This next leads to the formation of words to express or communicate with your best friend on phone, or just a chat with your mother or your brother or sister. That could satisfy the urge to be recognised for what you are. Hence words need to be strong enough to carry the emotion and reach the listener to have a good communication.

Let me share an experience with you.

The sweetness of summer clustered in the golden yellow colored mango, and the tasty curds with a tinge of salt spread over my tongue to titillate it for the best lyric of food to enjoy for this season.

Huh... such a long sentence to speak in simple words -
I relished a ripened mango with curds in my dinner.
:)

There lies, my dears, the strength of language to accompany our skill of speaking.

Mind Game

Brain is the physical identity for mind. But its not only the mind that makes a brain.
Brain has many functions to perform - voluntary or involuntary. It takes care of many activities such as maintaining the body temperature to heartbeat, breathing, sweating etc. But mind is blessed with the power of thinking. Sometimes segregating the information to remember or make a choice of forgetting it too. Mind is the reason for the great honour to be known as wise or otherwise :)

Mind includes:
Consciousness
Perception
Thinking
Judgement
Language
Memory

This takes us to the process of thinking. The platform to facilitate the abilities of humans. Thinking includes -
1. Recognise assumptions - recognizing the self made thoughts and collecting the facts
2. Evaluate information - Giving time to confirm the reality in our data and trying to find proofs to support our assumptions
3. Draw conclusions - Once we have the supported facts, we draw conclusions and make decisions
4. Plan of actions - Then follows making the various plans of action to achieve our task or go ahead in judging either persons or situations.

Language and Memory:
Since our childhood mind makes imprints of information practised by the child. This is contained in the form of imprints. The stronger imprints help the child in quick learning of words and makes the vocabulary for communication. The memory power connected with the mind's ability is the key element to drive us towards success. There are many techniques practiced by the students to increase their memory power and present their best in academics.
This deadly combination of will power and mind power is the key behind the making of a Sundar Pichai or a Satya Nadella. So belt your seats to achieve these two to make the best in the professional world.

BY WORDS THE MIND IS WINGED
Aristophanes

Mind is a power house of Imagination. It holds the power of recognition and appreciation. In our ways of speaking we have
a strong mind
weak mind
and a suspicious mind also.
A Criminal mind plans the crimes and the lawyers logical mind plays in the court of law - either proving it or falsifying it.
Another genre of mind is Open mind/minded/broad minded ones. This kind of open minded people are welcomed and appreciated by all. You know the reason why, I need not strain my mind :)

Best minds are those who are clever, intelligent and creative. I could see them in my mind's eye!

Two Minds

Yes, we have every right to change our mind!

When I'm confused I'll have two minds. Dont think I'm confused because if you need I'll give give a piece of my mind . It means that I'll tell you very clearly that I think you have behaved badly. So be sure before you ask :) Your presence of mind could save you my dear!

When we are angry !mind is the first word we opt for
Level 1 of anger - Mind your business
Level 2 of anger - Mind your words
When you lose your patience then it becomes "Mind your tongue"

Mind is the mill of thoughts that grinds the heart and the world with it's wisdom. Nobody is ready to take it for free. We prefer to follow the heart, and fall in the pits of foolery.

Now we have one more chamber to enter. Its not the heart of arteries and veins. Its the literary heart, the seat of emotions. There is an eternal war between the thoughts and emotions hence the existence of conflicting worlds of mind and heart! Epics are created out of the warring worlds.
Similar to the anger management, we should have mind management too.

Lets unlock the gates of heart leaving the mansion of mind.

Greek and Latin

Let's have some practice time:
Words making includes Root words is known to us. Let us gather some more roots of the words.

1. a - in Greek means without - the word "abyss" means without bottom
Check with James Cameron's film with the same word as its title. An interesting film.

2. a- in Latin means on
Example words are: ashore means on the shore
afire - on fire; aside (means on the side)

3. aer- in Greek means air
eg: aerospace (means the air space), aerial (means related to air)

4. acro means top or height in Greek
acrobat means a high walker
acronym means a word formed from the first letters of a word
eg:AIDS is an acronym for "Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome".
Fear of heights is mentioned as "acrophobia"

5. act means to do in Latin
activity, react, interact

Let's meet with some more words in my next post.

Don't you hear me

Hearing and listening sound synonymous to the casual reader. Check these two sentences below.
* Hear carefully or Listen carefully
* Hearing aids or Listening aids
Give'em a thought!

Now the idea is clear. Hearing is not Listening.
They depict different levels of the activity. Hearing is just the physical gathering of the sounds around us. We do not associate attention to those sounds that we hear. For example let us take - car horn sound, or the shouts of children in the play ground, or the TV program etc. We take in those sounds and we just hear them. And we don't try to remember them.

Listening is a activity associated with higher levels of concentration. We listen to the speeches of our favourite speakers. Note down the points or tips mentioned in their speeches mentally.Some even go to the extent of practising them in real life too. Listening results in connecting the content with the chord of a person's memory power.

So don't take it easy.
Hence we have this framed caution
"Listen Carefully!"  :)

Listening and hearing show their impact on our bonding with the people of our lives too.
A father is irritated when a son just hears at his words of caution regarding driving a bike or focus on studies.
What the dad said would not remain in the mind of the youngster. The moment he sits on the bike, only the racing road appears.
But it is an altogether different issue with our favourite activities.
We listen carefully to catch the words of the lyrics of our favourite songs. Hence we remember the songs more easily and for a long time.

Listening happens in three ways:
Listening to learn is considered as "Informational Listening" (Listening to Learn)
Sometimes we listen to Evaluate and analyse -   Critical Listening
Listening to understand, feeling and emotion - Empathetic Listening

These three types of listening occurs according to the place and the role of an individual in any given situation. Our vocabulary has to reflect the nuances of our intelligence and make work good for us.
 Hence seeing the words rather than just haring them works the best for us to respond well with others and sustain the emotional bonds longer.